USA: Missy Franklin may add the 50m freestyle and 200m medley to her repertoire, coach and mentor Todd Schmitz, of the Colorado Stars, tells the Denver Post today.

With the 100m and 200m free and backstroke and three relays to already go at, could it mean nine events for Franklin at trials and then Barcelona 2013 world titles?

"It’s always been her sixth or seventh best event,” coach Schmitz tells reporter John Henderson with a nod to the dash. “But she’s getting stronger. We’re going to continue that. The 50 free is wide open. A lot of names are going to retire."

Not among them: Ranomi Kromowidjojo (NED), Olympic champion and a swimmer it is hard to see being rivalled by Franklin right now. In the future, you would not wish to wager against the versatile double Olympic backstroke champion heading for Cal next autumn.

Franklin has done decent medleys before but her 'fly and breaststroke were not strong enough to merit making the event a priority over others. “This year we’re going to continue to develop it and see where it comes along,” says Schmitz. “We have two more Grand Prix stops. We’ll see how it progresses.” Franklin too says "let's see".

Meanwhile, she has unfinished business to attend to having just missed out on freestyle solo medals at London 2012. She tells Henderson: "My freestyles, I wasn’t real happy with how I finished this summer so it’s going to be great practice to get on a world championship stage and see where I am this time around. That has been a huge motivator at practice."

Australia: Former freestyle great Ian Thorpe looks set to skip a shot at Barcelona 2013 world titles in favour of focussing on a place at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow come 2014. Australia head coach Leigh Nugent told AAP: “I haven't heard from him, so I can't validate anything, but he's not training in any programs in Australia that I know of. Unless he was doing some training somewhere else, and doing a fair bit of it, he wouldn't be ready. You'd expect anyone who was going to prepare for the world championship trials would be doing some racing by now."